Jack's Second Surgery

Jack's surgery started out bright and early on the morning of April 19th.  I had taken that day off of work so I could take Jack to the surgery.  Cal had spent the night over at my in-laws on Thursday so we wouldn't have to worry about transporting him or entertaining him at the hospital all day.

We had to be at the hospital at 6:00am for a 7:30am surgery.  Although I had briefly explained to Jack what was going on, he didn't really understand.  All he cared about was riding the "elligators" (elevators).

He wanted to bring his pillow which I think was an excellent idea.

Walking across the sky bridge to the hospital.  It really was this dark out.

After checking in and getting a super cool hospital bracelet, we settled into the surgery waiting room.  Jack played on my tablet, not having a care in the world.  

Soon enough we were brought back to our room for the day and introduced to Jack's wonderful nurse Lacey.  She was so kind and explained everything to us.  Jack bonded with her immediately because she had a "way" with kids.  Jack got into his special hospital jammies and Lacey took vitals, did a few tests and talked to us about what we could expect.

Even though Jack had this same surgery when he was 15 months old, there are some differences.  Older children tend to have a more difficult time coming out of anesthesia.  They get very disoriented, can be really cranky, cry and some even just scream because they are so angry.  I had done some reading online so I expected a lot of this.  Also, Jack's adenoids were being taken out so he needed a breathing tube placed in.  That was different than the last time as well.

Lacey came in and gave Jack a dose of Verced, which calms them and makes them pretty sleepy.  I was afraid of him throwing up since he has such a terrible gag reflex.  Amazingly, he did great, even though he did say the medicine was "yucky".  

Pretty soon Jack got loopy and sleepy.  Even though he didn't fall asleep, he needed to be held up a bit because he would sit in the bed and sort of topple over.  It was like watching a tiny drunk person.

The anesthesiologist came in and met with us.  He gave Jack the mask and balloon to check out so he wouldn't be concerned when taking him back to surgery and that was it.  Jack wanted nothing else than to play with that thing.  Every other picture I have is of him and that darn balloon.

Loopy but he still realizes that toe clip is taking his pulse.

Watching Disney and there's Daddy!

Drunkard!

That dang balloon.  He would blow it up and play with it.  A few times we had to take it away because he was almost hyperventilating.

Laying down now.  Medication in full force.

Oh hai!  I am high on life!

The doctor was running about 30 minutes behind but that gave the Verced a good amount of time to work.  By the time the doctor got there, Jack was well medicated and he had no problems being wheeled off to surgery.  He still had the balloon so that was a good distraction.

Jason and I got our pager and went to get some breakfast.  I was a worried mama and couldn't really eat so I settled for some coffee and a very fattening pastry (stress eater checking in!).  After eating we were expecting a page pretty quickly so we settled back into the surgery waiting room.  We were told to expect to be paged about 45 minutes after Jack was wheeled back. Sure enough, it was right about 50 minutes.

We went back to our room to wait for a report from the doctor and to see Jack.  He went to recovery after surgery in order to make sure he was okay and not throwing up.  

Dr. Pedersen came and told us Jack had done well with the surgery (phew).  Apparently his adenoids were very enlarged and completely blocking his eustachian tube.  Taking them out would greatly help with the ear draining.  Since they cauterize the adenoids, we were told to expect him to have very bad breath for a few days.  His left ear, the one where the tube had fallen out, had very thick fluid in it that they had to suction out.  Also, because he was getting over the final legs of a cold, they needed to suction out his throat a bit too.  He was coughing a bit in recovery and getting the residual junk up.  Because he was crying for Mama, they brought him back to his room.

Like expected, he had a little bit of a hard time coming off the anesthesia.  He had an IV in his hand and he kept trying to rip it out and cried "Get it off, get it off" over and over again.  The IV can't come out until he could keep some fluids down without throwing up.  Lacey, his nurse kept offering juice (which he loves) or a popsicle.  Because he hadn't eaten anything since the night before, I was expecting him to jump at the chance of juice but he just kept crying "no, no, no!".

I held him for about 45 minutes, trying to calm him down, telling him he was safe, that we loved him, encouraging him to take a drink and promising him that as soon as he drank some juice, we could go home.  He would just keep crying, telling me his mouth hurt, pulling at his IV, and being generally cranky. I don't blame him the poor thing.

Finally after 45 minutes he drank some juice and was starting to feel like himself.  When he talked, he did indeed have super bad breath and sounded like he was getting over the worst cold of his life (almost like he was completely stuffed up).  Once he could drink and keep the juice down, Lacey took out his IV and we got him dressed.

We were on our way home!  He was groggy the rest of the day and took a super long nap after lunch.  Since I wanted him to have some food before eating but not upset his throat or stomach, I made him cinnamon toast, a banana and more juice.

Playing on the tablet at home, resting up.

The next few days, Jack recovered and was spoiled.  Calvin stayed over at Nana and Papa's another night so we could pamper Jack and let him get his rest.  We went out to dinner on Friday night because he seemed to be feeling great.  He was pretty crabby so our dinner wasn't completely fun.

The big thing that threw us off was that Jack didn't bounce back quite like we were expecting.  The doctor told us that by the next day, he wouldn't be in any pain and wouldn't need any medication with the exception of the antibiotic and ear drops he prescribed.  He shouldn't need any pain meds but we could certainly give him some.  Well, that wasn't the case.  For about a week, Jack complained of his mouth hurting.  To the point where he would wake up in the middle of the night crying in pain.  We had to constantly keep him on Ibuprofen so he would be comfortable.

By Monday I called his doctor because I was getting concerned.  I took him for a quick follow-up and it turns out the doctor might have knicked him with the cauter tool because his mouth had some white spots in it that didn't appear to be infection related.

Even though it took Jack a little longer to heal, I am glad we went through with the surgery.  He is unlikely to get any more ear infections until the tubes fall out.  That alone is a good thing since getting an ear infection every time he had a cold was getting problematic.

Hopefully this winter when cold and flu season is in full swing, we will really start seeing the benefits of this surgery.